Hi C.,
Food allergies are so hard. I wonder if your son is so attached to getting his nutrition from a bottle because he can derive so little comfort from the few foods he can eat. Just a thought. I have some nutritional advice (which I'm SURE you have not yet heard), and then some thoughts on his bottle habit. Okay, first of all, a little about who I am and why I know what I know about nutrition. I am half Scots and half Native American on my mom's side, hailing from the Chumash nation of Santa Barbara, CA, and currently living in Chino Hills. There are so many foods available that are not a part of the "standard American diet," and that are very tasty, nutritious, and kid-friendly. This could be an annoyingly long response if I were to go into all of them, so I'll just concentrate on the one I like best. Have you ever heard of a seed called Chia? Yes, ch-ch-ch-chia. Same seed as they use for those silly pets. Well, native peoples from our region all the way to South America have been using chia seeds for centuries. They are easy to get. Lookup Sun Organic Farms online and search for "organic chia seeds." They are packed with protein, both soluble and non-soluble fiber, they are anti-inflammatory to the intestinal tract (and everything else, for that matter), they are sweet, cooling, and kids love them. Best of all, they contain more omega-3 fatty acids than Salmon or any other plant food, even flax. They also help regulate blood sugar, which is soooo important for the treatment and prevention of diseases caused by the high-sweets diet of our culture.
They are incredibly easy to prepare. You simply grind them up in a coffee grinder, food processor, or other method, and then put a couple of teaspoons of the powdered seed in water. stir, and let it sit for 20 minutes. In that 20 minutes, the seeds will form a sweet-tasting, cool gel. Stir again, and drink them down. You can also add this powder to oatmeal, smoothies, or to whatever else you'd like to add protein, fiber, and omega-3's. I give them to my 20 month old daughter in her bottle every night after dinner. She is nice and full without being uncomfortable, and she sleeps happily through the night.
Okay, while I'm thinking about it, I'm also remembering tricks for getting as much protein from non-allergenic grains like oats, millet, quinoa, and others. It's a trick all our great-grandmas knew, but that our society has forgotten almost completely. This is the practice of soaking grains with water and an acidic element like fresh lemon juice, lime juice, or whey (which you can get by collecting the liquid that forms on top of your plain yogurt...you know what I mean, right?). All you have to do is put a serving or two of the dry grain in a bowl, put in enough water to cover it, and then add whey, or the juice of a half of lemon, and let sit overnight. In the morning you have a pre-soaked whole grain that will cook quickly. But the real magic is that the acid breaks down the lutein in the grain, which makes the protein in the germ much more accessible and digestible. This works great for beans, lentils, and tough wild rice, as well. This is how our Scots ancestors could practically live on oatmeal. Pretty smart, no?
So the last thing I want to say is just that if my daughter had as many food allergies as your son, and if she still wanted a bottle at age 4, and it was how she got a lot of her nutrition, and her teeth were fine, I would not give one single fig about anyone telling me what to do. Eventually, I believe, she would see that all the bigger kids and her peers don't use bottles, and would very likely ask to use something else. In the meantime, if no-one was teasing her mercilessly, I would let her have her bottle! I have always taken the advice that works for my family, and ditched the rest. Perhaps when there are more things in your son's life that fill up that emotional tank of his, the bottle will become less neccessary to him. That's just a thought. I'm sure that eventually, he will drop it when he's good and ready. I can't imagine that he'd be running around as a teenager with a bottle. I hope you listen to your supportive friends, and politely thank the people who mean well, but who don't know your son well enough to be truly supportive. This has been a good tack for me to take, so far. God bless, and write back anytime!
Love and support,
J., Chino Hills
